$100M Funding Round Will Help project44 Drive Supply Chain Transformation

  2020-12-21-Series-D-Blog

We’re excited to announce a Series D financing round of $100M, bringing project44’s total funding raised to $241M. This latest round, led by Insight Partners, comes at a critical time for the supply chain industry. 

Supply chains around the world have been forced to come to terms with uncertainty and ambiguity this year. The global pandemic added more chaos to a complicated industry that was already dealing with trade tensions and increasing customer expectations for fast and transparent delivery. 

Throughout the year, project44 has worked to deliver innovations that empower supply chains to stay agile and prepare for the unexpected while continuing to expand the largest carrier network for as much coverage as possible — all to work toward our vision to enable a more productive and successful world. 

Exposing the Importance of Supply Chain Transformation 

Unexpected demand paired with production and transportation disruptions quickly put a spotlight on supply chains within their organizations and in society at large. 

A recent KPMG report, KPMG 2020 CEO Outlook: COVID-19 Special Edition, found, Supply chain risk has accelerated up the agenda from its ninth-placed position at the beginning of the year — it now occupies second place as a major strategic threat.” 

While the need for supply chain transformation has been coming for years, this past year exposed gaps while also creating new challenges. Those with visibility have been able to harness real-time and predictive insights to mitigate transportation disruption and gain more control over their supply chain. 

In a recent CSCMP session, Tejuan Manners, Director of Cloud Customer Supply Chain Operations at Lenovo, shared how having project44 has helped Lenovo respond to this year’s disruptions,​“Our ability to pivot, and to leverage our data, has allowed us to win more trust. We have continued to be successful as a business. We got praise from our customers for being able to schedule orders quickly, pick the right logistics lanes, and deliver early or on time.” 

A Record-Breaking Year of Expanding Our Ecosystem 

In an intertwined industry, the ecosystem connections are essential. Supply chains gain more value when we have more carriers on our network and more integrations with other technology providers. Our focus has not only been on brining on more customers, but also expanding our carrier network and finding the best tech providers to build partnerships. 

Customer Base

While real-time transportation visibility has been picking up steam over the past few years, we saw record-breaking numbers of new customers. So far in 2020, we have signed 135 new customers, including companies like ABB, Alcon, Arcese, BSH Home Appliance, Flowserve, General Mills, Girteka Logistics, IFCO Systems GmbH, Lenovo, Magna International, PepsiCo and more. 

We have seen strong growth every quarter, across both North America and Europe and within a variety of industries. 

Carrier Network

We’ve said it from the beginning, and it’s true to this day, project44 is dedicated to building the broadest and deepest carrier network. Carriers are the linchpin to visibility, and our customers cannot gain visibility without them. 

With more than 780 telematics/​ELD connections and more than 4.3 million connected drivers, we have continued to expand our carrier reach. 

To formalize this commitment, we launched the industry’s first carrier compliance service level agreement (SLA) in 2020. Under this agreement, we ensure that 90% shipment volume of directly contracted capacity providers will be connected in 30 days of getting started. 

project44 also launched the Preferred Carriers program to celebrate carriers that have embraced shipment visibility. Each month, we publish a list of the top truckload, LTL, and ocean carriers featuring those that maintain high tracking percentages across multiple loads, sustain a consistent connection to provide high-fidelity data, and evangelize visibility. 

Partnerships

After launching a strategic partnership with SAP Logistics Business Network in leading in to 2020, we have continued to work with SAP to expand product functionality and deliver a comprehensive solution. 

We have also introduced a number of new partnerships to add value to all corners of the supply chain, including joining forces with IBM Sterling Supply Chain Insights to offer the most precise transportation data and AI, partnering with PINC to deliver the next generation of yard automation and predictability, and collaborating with OneRail to unify first and final mile logistics. 

Digital LTL Council 

In addition to technology partnerships, project44 co-founded the Digital LTL Council with other leaders in the space to help set standards for LTL digitalization that will help move the entire industry forward. Announced in November 2020, The Council is comprised of more than 20 organizations dedicated to the evolution of the LTL industry. 

Delivering a Comprehensive Global and Multimodal Supply Chain Visibility Solution 

Global Expansion

In addition to a quickly growing customer community in Europe, we have been diligently refining our offering in Europe and beyond to build a product that meets the needs of a global supply chain. 

After acquiring GateHouse Logistics, the then European leader in the visibility market, we continued to focus on building out our offering in the region. This year, we brought pre- and post-shipment automation to Europe, offering much needed automation for tender, dispatch, and digital document retrieval, including electronic bill of lading (eBOL) and proof of delivery (POD).

We also grew our team supporting the European market, reaching 90 employees in Europe across six countries. We have added team members throughout Europe to offer the regional expertise our customers need to be successful. 

Modal Expansion

In May, we announced modal expansion across air, groupage, and global ocean. These additions rounded out our modal coverage brining visibility for all modes into a single solution. 

By bringing these solutions together in one platform, project44 is the only visibility company to provide one seamless experience that enables collaboration across the ecosystem. 

Broader Visibility and Collaboration Capabilities 

Throughout the year, we have introduced key features to expand and deepen visibility, enabling more effective and efficient communications within and beyond the four walls of an organization. 

With Order and Inventory Visibility, customers can track shipments at the order or SKU level, gain a single view of associated orders, inventory, and shipments throughout the supply chain, and predict risk of shipments being delayed based on inventory and order health scores. This is essential to improve communication and take a more proactive approach throughout the supply chain. 

A carrier-centric version of the Visibility Operations Center™ (VOC) was also introduced, allowing carriers to gain the same shipment data and analytics as their customers. This access to data extends communication and provides carriers with the tools needed to analyze performance and help handle exceptions or fix any tracking errors to improve the customer experience. 

Security

As a steward of data, project44 takes security and data privacy seriously with a robust program to ensure security and compliance. This year, project44 passed a rigorous SOC 2 Type II audit, reinforcing this commitment to data security. And because security never sleeps, we will maintain the SOC 2 Type II designation through regular audits while continuing to expand their security program across global standards. 

Continuing to Improve Supply Chain Trust and Predictability 

The series D funding for project44 comes and a critical point for real-time transportation visibility and collaboration automation, as well as the supply chain industry as a whole. 

The new funding will go toward continued, global expansion of project44’s leading, multimodal carrier network as well as new product innovations, partnerships and integrations both up and downstream within the supply chain to offer the most advanced and comprehensive offering on the market. 

Led by Insight Partners, additional participation came from 8VC, Emergence, Omidyar, Sapphire, Section Partners, Sozo, and Underscore. Ross Devor, Managing Director at Insight Partners, will take a seat on the project44 board. We’re excited to welcome Devor to project44’s board as we work toward our mission to usher in new era of trust and predictability to transportation and logistics. 

Reach out to the project44 team to learn more about how visibility and automation can help transform your supply chain.